We all know that neighborhoods can be quite varied. From one block to the next, the urban landscape can change completely, and often nearby streets are regarded as being completely different from our own. We may know the guys across the street but have no idea who lives 100m down the road. Rosengård is a liminal community where immigrants are the majority, and it is known that there are about 50 different language groups distributed across the area. Thus, neighborhoods become microcosmos.

Exile on Amiralsgatan

From the nationality map, one can see that Rosengård acts as a haven for certain nationalities. Why do we stick around our own people, even in the furthest corners of the planet? One answer can be that it’s simple: in ethnic neighborhoods it’s easier to feel understood, to buy the same roots for your mother’s stew, to say hi in your own language, and why not, it may be simpler to get a job.

My experience as a foreigner in Norway tells me that while there are actually very few Costa Ricans in Bergen (and supposedly no more than 100 in the whole country), it is convenient to have my countrymen around. There are no Costa Rican corner shops, restaurants or churches, but it is good to smile and be understood.

At the same time, this is a self-imposed exile from your new country which very often earns little public support from local residents (notable exceptions include Little Italy and China Town). One might only wonder what role does the place you live in play in this situation, and if it can be a tool to break this wall.

Choosing a site

I chose 5 sites based on the density of use by local people: cars and trains come and go, but pedestrians often live here. Very few people walk through Rosengård casually. Therefore, these are the main urban spaces where I will work: located in different parts of the district, they aim to knit a web of urban life into its surroundings. After all, if the neighbors can have it, so can we.

Every city in every country has them: urban black holes. Places in the map which most of us only known by name, or by references (the news, stories or even urban legends). Having grown up in San José (Costa Rica), I confess to being an ignorant when it comes to places like La Carpio or Los Cuadros. I have never been there. I only know they exist because some else says they do.

Are these urban black holes places we don’t know much about, or do we actually ignore them openly? And more important: what makes these neighborhoods true dark spots in the map? Is there a way of redrawing a community so that it shows on mental maps and not just geographic ones?

The Öresund Strait region is an area of intense human and merchandise traffic. Each passenger, tourist or person that calls this place “home” leaves behind a mark in time and space: memories, activities, trash, things that were said… this mark is a way of appropriating the space through experience, possessing the place in memory and knowledge. This map emphasizes Malmö from the point of view of these “marks“, which I associate with the “lines of flight” of Guattari and Deleuze. Rosengård appears as a void, a place where the experience of living and leaving a mark upon space is invisible from the outside. How to add an element to make these lines of flight visible in the space in Rosengård? Improvising?

Walking through a neighborhood is an eye opener: in no other fashion can one discover aspects about the small-scale life of a community. This is a map of findings: it shows what exists (landmarks like shops or bus stops), or what existed in Rosengård at some point (marks left by people, such as an unfinished drawing found in the grass). What do these “clues” say about life in this place?

Sometimes to understand the big picture, one has to zoom in and understand how everything is held together.To those who know where to look: scroll.